If you could gain a superpower like invisibility or seeing the future, would you take it and use it? Okay, this power isn’t quite as impressive, but it can really make a difference. It is obvious that the hand-brain alliance can be a powerful force in helping us train our brains to give up their old, obesity-enabling ways and jump to a new track.
Example: A group of non-Greek children were asked to learn letters of the Greek alphabet. Some printed the strange symbols by hand; some used keyboards. Later, they were asked if they had ever seen the letters before, and the hand-printing kids remembered a lot more than the typing kids. Reporters Daniel J. Plebanek and Karin H. James discovered,
[T]he brain learns letters that are written by hand much more quickly than those that are typed. It does not matter how you write — printing, cursive, abbreviations, it just matters that you write by hand.
Other research has shown that college students more thoroughly remember what the prof said if they take class notes by hand, instead of typing them.
You are the boss of it
Dr. Nicole LePera encourages changing the subconscious mind, which holds stubborn ideas about how to run your life. “Autopilot is gonna do what autopilot has always done.” Unless, of course, the brain’s owner takes it in hand and tells it what’s what. The subconscious mind is very impressionable, and rather than let it be impressed with every stray idea that we hear all day long, we can control that process and impress our minds with content that does us some good, instead.
One way to do this is through journaling, in the morning if possible, because it sets up expectations — no, more than that, it sets up intentions — for how the day will go. If you don’t know what to say, start with, “I am grateful for…” Or mention three personality traits you would like to develop. Practice putting energy into cultivating the hand-brain connection. Just as test-taking is “a skill that you can learn” (see illustration), thinking about your issues is also a learnable skill. Handwriting or printing about issues makes the brain sit up and take notice.
The depths of us
The conscious mind can usually tell the difference between what’s real and what you imagine. The subconscious operates differently. This often works against you, but it can be made to work for you instead. You can tell your brain that you’re not someone who snacks between meals, and after a while, it just might actually get busy carving new neural pathways. As the Compartmentalize screen says, “Your brain unconsciously works on the problem in the background…”
In other words, you can train your gray matter to create a “new normal” for yourself. Of course, no one instantly, automatically becomes a different person. It takes some patience, and repetitive, consistent effort. Part of that effort could include using previously established techniques along with the BrainWeighve app’s suggestions.
The hand and the brain were developed by evolution to work together, so we need to take advantage of that partnership. In this specific case, the suggestion is being made to combine the power of the hand-brain connection with the potential of the BrainWeighve phone application, because writing out your thoughts before entering them into your device could make a meaningful difference to how well everything turns out.
(To be continued…)
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Why Handwriting is Good for Your Brain,” FrontiersIn.org, 04/06/22
Source: “How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Through Journaling,” YouTube, 2020
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